Recommended Stage Rules

Since there are so many new and altered stages in SD Remix and SD Remix Lite, we’ve come up with a recommended set of stage rules for tournaments for TOs to use, or at least to use as a starting point. We go over the rationale for the stage list, the actual stage lists, then the stage picking rules, with an extra section on how to use “Stage Swaps” and the alternate stages, if TOs want to expand the set of playable stages.

If you want a simple ruleset, such as when people are not familiar with SD Remix and are mainly Melee players, you can just ban stage swaping and just use the neutral and counterpick stages.

Stage Lists

Rationale

Neutral stages were picked to provide very standard gameplay without disruption, but also some variety so they can all fill their own niches (and so that stage striking actually means something).

Counterpicks were picked so that they are close to neutral stages as far as match up skewing, while keeping core gameplay focus with little disruption like neutrals, while introducing more niches to the stage list (and keeping duplication to a minimum so stage banning actually means something).

Neutral Alternates are just alternates specifically for the neutral stages. These often are very similar to the default neutral stages and have to be handled separately. These are optional (See “Stage Swaps“).

Alternates are other stages that have some level of disruption or non-standard-ness or match up skewing, but they are playable in many competitive situations, and are acceptable if they are easily ban-able and hard to pick. These are optional (See “Stage Swaps“).

Borderline stages are stages that have more serious match up skews or alters the focus more than normal, but still can be played competitively, as long as they are hard to pick and easily ban-able. Some TOs may want to ban these altogether. These are optional (See “Stage Swaps“).

Borderline Walls are only acceptable as alternates if wall bracing is on to combat wall infinites on those stages. These are optional (See “Stage Swaps“).

Banned Stages are stages that are just too disruptive or shift the focus away from fighting too much to be competitively playable at all.

Fountain of Dreams (Alpha)/Omega Kongo Jungle N64 – For singles, fountain of dreams is standard stage design. Moving stage and lower stage make it not neutral. If playing doubles, replace this with Omega Kongo Jungle 64. [Note: While the removal of background elements helps, all 4 Bowsers doing flame can still generate lag, so this is still banned for Doubles]

Omega Kongo Jungle – Good stage design, but stage slightly shifts around to make it not neutral.

Borderline

There are some gameplay issues with these stages, but they may be okay as an alternate because they are easily ban-able and hard to pick. Some TOs may want to ban some or all of these as alternates. These are optional (See “Stage Swaps“).

Borderline Walls

These stages may be okay as an alternate if Wall Bracing is enabled, which counters wall infinites. Otherwise, permanent wall infinites completely skew matchups in favor of those with wall infinites. These are optional (See “Stage Swaps“).

Dave’s Stupid Rule automatically bans any stages the Loser has won on in this set.

Winner can either ban two counterpick stages or ban one of each (one neutral and one counterpick).

Loser picks a stage from the remaining stages.

Winner picks a character.

Loser picks a character.

The match is played.

Stage Swaps

If you want to expand the pool of stages you want to play on, you can use the “Stage Swap” rule, before the winner bans stages (as mentioned in the stage rules above). Even when TOs have not banned this rule, using a stage swap is completely optional.

The loser may ONLY use ONE stage swap. Note that Dave’s Stupid Rule is applied after a swap, so if the loser swaps in a stage they previously won on, they effectively lose that stage.

A stage swap is one of the following:

Replace a neutral stage with its Neutral Alternate counterpart. When winner goes to ban stages, the Neutral Alternate stage is considered a counterpick stage.

No Wind Dreamland 64 -> Normal Dreamland 64

No Flyguys Yoshi’s Story -> Normal Yoshi’s Story

No Transformations Pokémon Stadium -> Normal Pokémon Stadium

Battlefield and Final Destination don’t have neutral alternates.

Replace a counterpick stage with an Alternate stage. These may include Borderline stages depending on if wall bracing is on and TO/player choice on ruleset.